Jackie's Journal (3rd Excerpt)
Player: James Beech, GM: Mutu, Week 3 (August) San Francisco, CA US (again) I'm starting to dislike California. This time, I'm writing from a hospital. I'm supposed to be resting, but I can't relax here. Everything smells like disinfectant, all cold and sharp. Matters aren't improved by the smell of wet dog coming from Charlie's bed on the other side of the curtains. Right, beginning at the beginning. Arcadia put out a call about a mysteriously draining lake in California. Draining faster than all the other lakes in California, I mean. Since Vegas and I were practically next door (at least compared to when we have hunts in, say, Chicago) we decided we should answer it. The lake in question turned out to be in a sort of vacation area for rich people, but one of Vegas' people was able to set us up with a house for the week. Of course, when Vegas' niece Charlie heard that we were going to be spending a week in sunny, swanky California, she decided she just ''had ''to come on this hunt too. I don't really like Charlie that much. She's some kind of shapeshifter, not even a proper were-bear like Zack, more like the old skinwalkers. She's only nineteen but she treats me like a little kid, far more than the actual grownups do. Still, she's Vegas' so I try to put up with her. The other hunters coming with us were Jordan Summer and Cobalt. I know Jordan pretty well. Katarina took me to him when I was still learning about my powers, because he's really strong with the Sight, though he calls it his Third Eye. We've done some jobs together since then, including one time we found a really creepy sword...but that's another story. I didn't think I knew Cobalt at all, but Rollo seemed to remember him and not like him one bit. After we all got settled into our fancy vacation house, we headed to the local marina to look at the lake and ask some questions. Actually, Vegas did most of the question asking since they're better at that sort of thing. They found out from the marina's manager that the lake had been going down really fast: more than six feet in only a month. I could believe it too. All the rich people's yachts were just lying there on the cracked mud. The manager said they ran a trailer now, to carry people's boats out to the water that was left. Vegas decided to hire a boat, the trailer, and some scuba gear so we could all go out and have a look around. While they were getting everything ready, we had a nice lunch at the marina's restaurant. It got Fettuccine Alfredo, which is like rich-people mac and cheese. Before we even got out on the water, I had a good look at the lake with my Sight. Right away I could see that there was something dark deep down and near the center. I couldn't see it clearly, but it was big and for once, it didn't make my head hurt. We gathered all our fighting gear and Vegas steered the boat out towards the darkness. As we drew near, something happened; it felt almost as though we had struck something unseen in the water. Vegas jerked the wheel hard, but it must have been the wrong way. Before anyone could even scream, the boat was capsized! The water was terrifying. This was actually quite odd. The lake was very calm and not that deep and I even had a life jacket on. I might very reasonably have been scared of things ''in ''the water, but there was no good reason to be scared of the water itself. Nevertheless, I could feel panic rising in me, hot and cold at the same time. From the looks of things, I wasn't the only one. Worse, Rollo was reacting to my fear. His eyes flared up like green coals and the tentacles of this mane lashed as though stirred by a high wind. Fortunately, we had Jordan with us. He created an ice platform for us to sit (though he nearly flash-froze us in the process) on and used another little iceberg that popped up like a cork to knock our boat right side up again. I crouched on the rapidly melting ice as far from everyone else as I could. I was soaked and shivering and it was taking all of my willpower just to stop Rollo from pouncing on people. Vegas spotted me, and slid right over. They pulled a thermos out of the backpack and passed it to me. Somehow it had stayed sealed even when we were flung overboard. The cocoa was lukewarm, but it helped to calm me down. Vegas smiled at me and said they knew I could do this, they knew I was strong. That filled me with a glow warmer than the cocoa. Jordan decided to jump back into the boat to retrieve the spell ingredients he had stowed in the glove compartment (is it still a glove compartment on a boat?). He wanted to try a counter-spell to shield us from the unnatural fear. Unfortunately, his jump didn't go as planned and he ended up back in the water, panicking worse than ever. Charlie and Cobalt's attempts to help him only managed to do him injury and land them both in the water. The ice was running out. It was now or never. I sprang lightly into the boat and dug around until I found Jordan's spell pouch. I knew some pretty strong calming charms; Katarina had taught me them, hoping they'd help me manage Rollo. I found the ingredients to one of them, and I performed the little ritual as fast as I could manage, struggling to keep my footing in the water-filled boat. As I finished the last syllable of the chant, I felt the terror recede. Our scuba gear was lost and we were pretty battered, so once we were all back on the boat, we decided to return the house to patch ourselves up and make a new plan. We resolved to keep the marina's boat. We beached it out of sight and Jordan covered it in a veil. He stayed nearby to guard it as well, while the rest of us squelched our way home. Back at the house, Charlie immediately ran to the pantry, shouting something about meat. I'd seen her eat a steak the size of her head at the restaurant, but apparently the beast was hungry again. Sadly, the owners of the house hadn't thought to leave any skinned and dressed deer in the fridge when they went away. Charlie struggled with a can of foie gras for a moment, then threw it to the floor with a snarl of frustration. The snarling didn't stop there though, but got louder and deeper until we were face to face with a starving amphicyon. She gulped down the foie gras, tin can and all, then bolted into the living room and started devouring the leather couch. Vegas went after her, shouting for her to calm down and generally trying to contain the property damage. Charlie only growled and lashed out at them. Her claws opened a long cut on Vegas' cheek. That's when Rollo lost it. He could already feel my fear of the raging beast Charlie had become, and my sharper terror that Vegas' might be killed pushed him over the edge. He sprang at Charlie, biting, clawing, and stinging. Cobalt, who'd been out in the backyard this whole time, came running in and fired his shotgun into the air. Both monsters ignored him. The amphicyon, spooked by an attacker it could not see, fled, passing through a solid wall as though it was smoke. Like I said, skinwalker. Rollo roared in triumph. I was trembling, mostly with fury. I was furious at Rollo, and at myself for losing control, and mostly at Charlie for putting me in an impossible situation. Vegas found the house's first aid kit and we were just wondering whether we should do something about Charlie running around loose and possibly eating the neighbors, when she returned. She was human shaped again, with blood on her clothes and mouth, and with her came the sounds of an approaching helicopter. It seemed one of the rich neighbors had heard us and called in a SWAT team. We ran outside, only to collide with another crew of police-types in riot gear coming the other way. It was Vegas who saved us. Pressing a hand to their bleeding face, they pointed back towards the house and began babbling hysterically about lunatics. The cops bought it and sprinted off towards the house, all except one old cynic who decided to stick around and ask questions. Unluckily for him, he never saw Charlie slip around behind him. He'll live. Probably. We didn't stick around after that, but dashed back to where Jordan was waiting with the boat. He was rather to surprised to see us wild-eyed and panting, but he explained that he'd had an idea while he was waiting. Cobalt had dropped one of his guns to the lake bottom when we capsized, and apparently Jordan thought he could use the link between the man and the gun to see what was going on down there. While they did that, Vegas did their best to patch us all up with the stolen first aid kit. Jordan's news wasn't good. Something dark with glowing yes and huge tentacles was lurking on the lake bed, and it seemed to be drinking the water right up. None of us knew what a monster like that might be though, or how we could hope to hurt it, especially since all our scuba gear was lying right in front of it. Around this time, the SWAT guys showed up again. We hopped on the boat, which was still invisible, and Jordan called up a wall of ice as we fled. I could hear the bullets thudding into it. We jumped off again on the far side of the cove and were under the shelter of the trees just before the helicopter arrived. We crouched under the leaves as it roared by overhead. We were trapped. I hadn't used my telepathy, the part of my Sight which lets me see and speak to mortal minds as well as spirits, since that disaster in Chicago. But this was and emergency. I drew focus circle to extend my range, then I reached out for the bright spark that was the mind of the man piloting the helicopter. Gently, I whispered to him that the criminals wouldn't have hung around the lake and were probably half way to the next county by now. He'd better go off an look for them, hadn't he? After a moment, we heard the roar of chopper blades fading away to the east. We decided we needed more info before tackling the thing in the lake and the nearest occult library we knew of was all the way in San Francisco. We piled into Cobalt's car and took off for the big city. We hadn't gone more than mile before we found the police road block. Jordan just grinned like a maniac and told Cobalt to floor it. As we hurtled forward, he created a ramp out of ice and we jumped right over the cop cars and sped away! It was pretty awesome. At the library, we found out that the creature in the lake was almost certainly a drought demon. Now that we knew what it was we could try to summon and bind it. We drove out into the desert to do this, figuring the thing might be weaker away from water and that there'd be fewer innocent bystanders around. Jordan let me lead the ritual. I guess my trick back at the lake had impressed him. We could hear the thing coming before we saw it. Distant trees snapped with sound like gunfire and its roaring echoed off the hills. Rollo roared back, defiant. The sun had set, so when the demon finally dragged itself into view, it was just a dark mass of shadow against the night sky. It was huge, so huge I didn't realize at first how far away its was or how fast it must be traveling. It thundered towards us and my mind went blank with dread. I could feel the earth shaking under my feet, but I did not run. The demon came to a crashing halt in the huge circle we had drawn, bound by our spell. It lashed out in all directions with tentacles as thick as telephone poles. Cobalt blasted one of these clean off with his shotgun. Charlie sank her fangs into another and Jordan pinned more to the ground with ice. But still the thing fought on. I yelped and threw myself to the ground, as a tentacles pulverized the sand where I'd been standing. Rollo snarled and charged the demon. With a vicious swipe of his claws, he tore open its bloated body. Foul water spilled out onto the desert sand. The demon twitched, and then went still, its eyes ceasing to glow. The next day, Vegas had samples of the demon sent off to their contacts in the occult and biological circles. The biologist claimed its cells looked cancerous, so then Vegas rushed me and Charlie to the hospital. Charlie had been biting the demon after all, and I'd gotten splashed with some of the foul water. I guess they were worried we might have cancer now, but the doctors say all our blood work looks normal. We're just staying overnight for observation. I'm more worried about Rollo. Killing the demon and vanquishing the amphicyon in the same day seems to have gone to his head. He's been unruly, wanting to bite the doctors and nurses who had to stick needles in me. He even looks a little bigger. Is that possible? There is so much I still don't know. There is so much I'm scared to learn.